Ynet With Yemen in turmoil, Egypt sends warships to secure Gulf of Aden Egypt and Sudan on Thursday pledged support for the Saudi-led strikes on Iran's Yemen allies the Houthis, even as four Egyptian naval vessels crossed the Suez Canal en route to Yemen to secure the Gulf of Aden. Maritime sources at the Suez Canal confirmed the vessels' route, saying they expected them to reach the Red Sea by Thursday evening. Read more: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4641293,00.html The Guardian Yemen conflict poised to escalate as Egypt says it is ready to send troops The possibility of a ground offensive in Yemen has grown significantly as Egypt declared its readiness to send troops into the embattled country "if necessary" in the wake of air strikes launched by a Saudi-led coalition. "Egypt has declared its political and military support, as well as its participation with the coalition with an aerial and naval Egyptian force, as well as a ground force if necessary, in light of Egypt's historic and unshakeable responsibility towards Arab and Gulf national security," Egypt's foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, told a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Sharm el-Sheikh on Thursday. Three senior Egyptian security and military officials told the Associated Press that Saudi Arabia and Egypt would lead a ground operation in Yemen after a campaign of air strikes to weaken the rebels, saying the forces would enter by land from Saudi Arabia and by sea from the Red Sea and Arabian Sea. They said on Thursday that other nations would also be involved. Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/26/yemen-egypt-troops-houthi-rebels-air-strikes The New York Times Egypt Says It May Send Troops to Yemen to Fight Houthis Egypt said Thursday that it was prepared to send troops into Yemen as part of a Saudi-led campaign against the Iranian-backed Houthi movement, signaling the possibility of a protracted ground war on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula. A day after Saudi Arabia and a coalition of nine other states began hammering the Houthis with airstrikes and blockading the Yemeni coast, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt said in a statement that the country's navy and air force would join the campaign. The Egyptian Army, the largest in the Arab world, was ready to send ground troops "if necessary," Mr. Sisi said. Egypt must "fulfill the calls of the Yemeni people for the return of stability and the preservation of the Arab identity," he said, alluding to the specter of Iranian influence. Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/27/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-houthis-yemen.html?_r=0 Al Monitor Egypt terror attacks fail to scare investors During the Economic Development Conference held in Sharm el-Sheikh to encourage and stimulate investment in Egypt, bombs exploded on March 13-14 in the vicinity of the HSBC, Barclays and Piraeus banks in Alexandria. On March 15, the stock market rose by an estimated 2 billion Egyptian pounds ($261 million). Normally, bombings and terrorism affect stock markets negatively. Indeed, this was the case when the Egyptian Exchange dropped by an estimated 26 billion Egyptian pounds ($3.39 billion) at the end of the week that saw a bomb blast near Cairo University in April 2014. Economic expert Faraj Abdel Fattah, professor at the faculty of economics and political science at the University of Cairo, told Al-Monitor that the fact that the stock market rose despite the recent bombings near the banks indicates that the economic conference, "which dominated all the events," had a positive impact after all. Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/03/egypt-bombings-banks-hsbc-economic-conference-stock-market.html##ixzz3VZRCb3lk
